McCain understands that subsidies are bad, better than Obama does

I made this observation about the candidates' respective constitutional understanding here.

But when it comes to ethanol subsidation (which can increase death via higher global warming than gasoline, plus starvation due to crop diversions to ethanol away from feeding people), McCain looks like the better:

David Brooks reports:

In 2000, McCain ran for president and reiterated his longstanding opposition to ethanol subsidies. Though it crippled his chances in Iowa, he argued that ethanol was a wasteful giveaway. A recent study in the journal Science has shown that when you take all impacts into consideration, ethanol consumption increases greenhouse gas emissions compared with regular gasoline. Unlike, say, Barack Obama, McCain still opposes ethanol subsidies.

UPDATE: Megan McArdle nails it on Obama's economic advisors:

The differences between Obama's team and McCain are also stark, but in a different way: his advisors are more technocrat than Ideologue.

If Obama's team has a fault, it is that they spend far too much time saying "Don't listen to him--listen to us!"